


Things for which we must be grateful

by Pigsinspaaace



Series: Roommates AU [3]
Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:43:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9253298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigsinspaaace/pseuds/Pigsinspaaace
Summary: Some context forThanksgivingand Baz's gift on their firstanniversary.





	

**Simon**

_4th grade; Third week of November_

I'm in class, doing my work, and trying not to throw up. It's the same kind of work we do every week, the same thing we practice for every year-end state test.

We read passages. We circle the topic sentence in each paragraph, underline the fragments of supporting sentences. We fill little circles with lead pencils: (a), (b), (c), or (d).

We choose the title that best matches the passage and we summarize the main point being made by the author. We list the evidence we think the author brings to support that point.

But this week, the passages are about giving thanks. They're short stories about people who were grateful even though their lives seemed terrible. Or short descriptions of early settlers who had so little and yet were filled with joy and hope. Or flowery encouragement not to take things for granted.

The same little pile of examples comes up every year, in different combinations: The List of Things For Which We Must Feel Grateful. Having enough food to eat. Having a safe, clean place to sleep. Our loving families. Trees, and the air they provide. A country that guarantees all its citizens can live in freedom.

We write thank-you letters to our families. The first few lines we copy from the board:

To my ____, Thank you for everything you do for me. The holiday of Thanksgiving reminds us to be thankful every day. This is what I am thankful for:

The rest we fill in ourselves. My teacher checks my paper to make sure I wrote enough things, because I finish a long time before everyone else. She smiles at my long list.

I feel a little bit guilty taking credit for it. But I know by now not to tell her why the words come so easily to me. I don't explain that I just have more practice doing this than anyone else here.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the class whose father cares enough to make sure the gratitude is real. Or maybe I'm just the only one whose heart is so bad at being grateful that their parents have to work so hard to teach them how to feel it.

I also feel guilty about her praise, because secretly I hate writing the cards. I hate reading the passages. I hate having to be thankful. I hate Thanksgiving.

I don't feel thankful. I feel scared, and angry, and alone. I'm a failure at being grateful. I feel angry about everything I don't have, instead of grateful for what I do have. I feel angry every time I don't have something on The List.

I feel a steady, low beat of fear that I will be found out. That someone will notice how wrong I am inside, that they'll notice that something terrible hides inside of me. They'll notice and they'll call my father. I pretend my father loves me. I pretend I have cousins and friends like everyone else, and that they love me too. I pretend the word love doesn't make me feel empty. I pretend that I don't desperately wish that I could be like them. I know jealousy is wrong. But no matter how hard I try, I still wish, wish, wish.

Thanksgiving finally passes. But there's more lying to do after Thanksgiving, too. When our teacher asks each of us about our holidays, I don't tell the class about how my dad read the card and then asked me what I was most thankful for. I don't tell them how my face hurt after I said I was most thankful for school. I don't tell them that I still don't know if he hit me because he thought I was lying, or because he knew I wasn't.

I don't explain to the class how my eyes frantically searched the room for something else I could give as an answer, or how they hit on a toy on the couch.

It's a small keychain-size little thing with four colored segments that light up in different patterns, and you're supposed to repeat the pattern. My dad's secretary got it for me, because we have the same name. Me and the toy, not me and the secretary.

So I told my dad 'Simon,' and then immediately cringed at how stupid that sounded. Then I flinched because I cringed, and cringing is a bad idea. But so is flinching. So then I tried to just stand still.

I don't tell the class about how my dad just kind of walked over and picked up Simon (the toy). Then he looked at me, and he tilted his head, and he smiled. And he said, "really? This?" I don't explain how I let my head nod slightly, unsure of what I was supposed to do. Or how my father crushed it in his hand like it was nothing.

I definitely don't try to explain to my classmates the relief I felt when I saw the shattered bits of plastic in his hand. I don't explain the lightheaded disbelief that he bought it, the relief that I was going to get out of this without losing anything worse than a stupid toy.

I should have known better. I mean, I did know better, honestly. But I can't help hoping, each time.

He reached out to hand me the broken pieces of plastic, and I reached out to take them. He grabbed my wrist, hard, hard. And pulled me very close. He did something twisty to my arm, and he said, "want to try lying again? See how it works out? Or are you less of a complete idiot than you appear?"

The question was too confusing; I didn't even try to answer. I just tried to stay still. He let go, and stared at me, and whispered "pathetic." Then he reached out for me again, and before he could touch me, I gave in.

I led him upstairs. To my room. To my closet. To the shoebox in the corner where I keep the things I treasure.

Maybe he was bluffing. Maybe he didn't know about the box, or the things I had hidden inside it. Maybe he never would have known about it, if I hadn't taken him right to it. Maybe he tricked me into showing him, so it's my fault that it's gone now.

I gave it to him. My box. Willingly. Sort of. I mean, I brought him to it, I handed it over to him. And he opened it and I had to shut my eyes. I hated him seeing it. I hated him seeing the things that were me, the small things that I'd kept and collected and saved for years. I hated how pathetic I knew it must look to him. I hated how stupid and small I knew I must look to him. Most of all I hated how I didn't do anything. I just let him. Let him flick through the box with his long mean fingers.

I stood with my eyes closed and listened to the sound of his fingers sifting through the sad pieces of me. I didn't need to have my eyes open in order to know what he was touching. Candles saved from other people's cakes; a piece of ribbon from a present I once got. A messy pile of silver and gold stars peeled off tests and assignments. Hamburger-shaped erasers, football-shaped erasers, rainbow erasers. Stuff I would win in school for doing all my homework or keeping my desk clean. Stuff I could hide in my pockets until it was safe to deliver them into my box to look at later, when I wanted to remind myself that I don't always get everything wrong.

And I didn't have to look to know what he was holding when his fingers finally stopped moving and the rustling stilled. I looked anyway, just to be sure. Maybe he wouldn't figure it out? But he was holding it. He knew. He always knows.

He was holding this red ball I've had for a couple of years. I drew a face on it. I never bounce it anymore. It's too important for bouncing. It's what I talk to during the night when I can't sleep. It's what I cry to when everything hurts and I need to tell something to someone.

I can’t let myself use it too much or it might run out. I don’t really know what it can run out of. I just know I have to be careful with it. I can’t take any risks with it. I only let myself take it out of its box when I really, really need it.

I don’t tell my class about how he dropped the box and walked back out of the room without having said a single word, still holding the ball, and whistling lightly. How I got on my knees to collect everything else back into the box. How I stayed there for a long, long time, not crying. How I finally stood up again, clutching my box. How I walked back downstairs, out the back door, and threw the box and everything in it into the dumpster down the alley. How I still didn't cry.

I don’t remember anymore what I say to my class instead. I just know I don’t say any of that.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Some context for [ Thanksgiving ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6447340/chapters/19861495) and Baz's gift on their first [ anniversary. ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6447340/chapters/20041030)


End file.
